Some Scars Cannot Be Healed
by Eraina
Summary: [Triplets of Belleville] (May not be suitable for children under 13.) Champion's captivity in Belleville has taken a greater toll than Madame Souza knows. First Triplets fanfic on fanfiction.net! Moved to Misc. Movies in hopes of getting more reviews.
1. Night

Some Scars Cannot Be Healed

By: La Fille de Belleville

Rated: PG-13

Summary: [The Triplets of Belleville] Champion's captivity in Belleville has taken a greater toll than Madame Souza knows.  Some scars are permanent.  This is the first Triplets of Belleville fanfic on fanfiction.net!

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, or, for that matter, a city named "Belleville."  (I just visit  occasionally J.)  They are the property of Sylvian Chomet, who drew the characters himself, produced an animated movie on them, and is now rolling in awards.  Eh, bien, some guys have all the luck.

Author's Notes: If you're looking for a fanfic with the title characters of the movie, this isn't for you.  (In case you haven't seen the movie—and I'll bet many of you probably haven't—there's a nice summary embedded in my fic.)  If you detest Champion (that's pronounced 'Sham-pyo,' folks), you'll probably love this; if you feel for his character, this is one of those "Aw…" fanfics.  Absolutely littered with angst.  Review!

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Chapter One: Night

If a person happened to be commuting on the raised railway train from Paris into the countryside, they might be puzzled by an old, crooked house sagging precariously beside the dominating tracks.  If they took a closer look in the upstairs window, especially around the hour of ten P.M., they might be able to catch a glimpse of a lanky figure crouched on a shabby bed, his thin mouth pursed with concentration as he maneuvered a long, shining needle into one of his scrawny forearms.

The person who caught such a rare glimpse of that figure might wonder what his name was, what had happened to him to make him so desperate—but by that time, the house would be lost to view amid the sooty fog that wound its way through the Parisian nightscape.

~~~

Champion cautiously lifted his anvil-shaped head from the limp, graying pillow, eyes wide and staring into the darkness like an owl's.  He listened to the absolute silence for a few moments before he carefully sat up in bed, moving as slowly as possible for fear of making one of the rusty springs of his mattress creak.  Wraith-like, he crossed the bare floor and stuck his head out of the open door and into the hallway.  As he had assumed, a death-like quiet enshrouded the house.

Satisfied with the silence, Champion carefully closed the door to his room and flicked on a dim, faintly blue electric light.  The bulb cast an eerie glow over his pallid features and seemed to transform him into some ghostly apparition—an apparition who glided noiselessly over to his miniscule closet and retrieved a few odd essentials from their hiding place behind a large, haphazard pile of cycling memorabilia.  Arms laden with his effects, Champion returned to his bed and sat cross-legged, meticulously preparing for that night's indulgence.  His spider-like hands arranged the weirdly assorted objects: A small vial of clear liquid, a jar of rubbing alcohol, and a well-used cloth stained with drops of a rusty color.   Beside those oddities rested a small, clear tube and a thin needle that glittered dangerously in the pale light.

Champion worked quickly, an oddly uninvolved purpose lingering in his large, round eyes.  He _needed_ to be so cursory—already his arms were trembling slightly from deprivation, and his mind whined of a bitter need for the liquid in the small glass vial.  Unsteadily, he unscrewed the vial's cap and affixed one end of the tube over the bottle's small mouth, then slipped the needle into the other end.  Gripping the gleaming needle between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he gave a small, satisfied sigh in anticipation of the relief that was about to come.  

Flickering thoughts whirled in his aching brain, vying for recognition, and for a moment one of them shouldered its way to the forefront of his awareness.  He found himself hesitating for an instant as he pondered the fateful events that had led up to this moment, regarding them with an outsider's interest.

It began in his boyhood, before he had ever known of Belleville and the French Mafia, or ever dreamed of competing in the prestigious Tour de France.  His parents' deaths had opened a deep void in his life, and he had grown into a chubby child obsessed with the single photograph of his parents—a photograph in which they posed, grinning, on a bicycle.  That photograph had prompted his lifelong desire to win the Tour de France, and it was a scrapbook that he had created that inspired his grandmother and caretaker, Madame Souza, to buy him a small tricycle.

From that day forward, Champion had trained relentlessly to become a world-class cyclist, aided by the sharp, rhythmic staccato of his grandmother's ever-present whistle.  He'd devoted himself to an intense, albeit self-concocted training program, a regimen that had punished his body and changed him over the years into a man barely recognizable as the pudgy child in several old photos.  His back was permanently hunched from years of crouching in an aero tuck over the handlebars of his bike; his face, arms, and torso were starkly lean, testament to continuous dietary restrictions.  In contrast, the muscles of his calves and thighs had swelled to grossly disproportionate size, thanks to hours spent riding up and down the agonizingly inclined cobblestone streets of Paris each day.  Trophies of varying size littered his room, and he'd finally undertaken the greatest challenge of his life—his first Tour de France, the greatest cycling race in the world and a cultural phenomenon in his home country.

He'd done comparatively well in the initial stages, gaining self-confidence and adjusting to the rhythm of the days-long race.  Each day he had competed with the reassurance that Madame Souza and his faithful dog, Bruno, were following him in a _voiture__-balais_ at the tail end of the race, and the thought had merely spurred him to greater risks and greater triumphs.  His carefully cultured legs had served him well, enduring the hardships that his mind demanded from them in every stage.  For a few glorious evenings, he had actually believed that he might triumph on the course.

Then came the lethal stage: the Col du Femur, a torture route for cyclists up the southern slopes of moon-landscaped Mount Ventoux.  The physical pain had nearly been outmatched by psychological battering—the mountain was ever-present and ever-rising, its steep slopes never dipping into shallow valleys or curves.  Mentally and physically exhausted despite his rigorous training, Champion had doggedly pedaled on, despair enveloping his mind as he continued.  His own psyche, more than his legs, had failed him.

He was done.  He had known it, maybe, when he'd first seen the mountain's steep slopes rising before him.  He had tried to ignore it, but his will had proved too weak.  

He had failed.

He had embraced defeat with dignity, however.  He had not fallen in a gasping, asphyxiated heap to the ground, like the two cyclists that had given in before him.  Instead, he had dismounted from his bike and walked until the "hearse"—the dreaded medical vehicle that followed the racers—had come to claim him.

Unaware of the consequences of his actions, he had not struggled with his captors—not even when he had been ferried across the ocean and realized that something was wrong.  He had preserved his dignity, standing and watching the blocky, generic Mafia gunmen as they monitored him and his fellow racers, who had been frightened and exhausted.  He had not resisted as they forced him into the cellar that was to be his home for the next few months.  Almost methodically, he had accepted his new, dull fate.

Then, one day, that situation had changed.

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	2. The First Time

Chapter Two: The First Time

His captors usually brought Champion and his fellow captives a small meal once a day; the foods varied according to the capi's whims and desires.  To the average Bellevillian, that amount of food would have been barely enough to keep them alive, but Champion subsisted on that meager meal surprisingly well; at least it had been no more than what he had received at home.  In fact, he felt rather grateful that his captors were conscious of his need to maintain a strictly controlled racing weight.  Other than that, his contact with the diminutive capi and his square-shouldered bodyguards consisted of periodic openings of the secret compartment that allowed them to observe his every move.  But that day, it had been different. They had not shoved a minimal dinner through the picture's hollow. 

That day had changed his life forever.

~~~

Champion was vaguely surprised when the door on the wall adjacent to the picture opened, and a pair of Mafia gunmen entered.  His life before Belleville had been ruled by undeviating routine, and this change in routine, though small, was at least mildly interesting.  Lack of stimulation had made his mind slower over the weeks and his brain seized the chance for activity.

The two racers caged with him shrank back fearfully, terror evident in their horse-like faces.  The black-suited men ignored them for a moment, however, and converged on Champion instead.  The cyclist obediently stepped forward when one of them shoved him roughly through the door—resistance would achieve nothing.  The last thing he saw before the men continued to push him down the hallway was one of the racers he had left behind, staring at him.  

The two bodyguards jostled him down the hallway, dragging him up by the collar when he stumbled.  It seemed they enjoyed mishandling him whether or not they had a reason.  He quietly bore the mistreatment, allowing them to direct him into another room, equally dark and dank, but somewhat larger, and with a peculiar red light refracting from the ceiling.  He began to crane his neck to look upward, but the two generic bodyguards abruptly gripped his arms, jerking his head downward.  They dragged him against the wall at the far end of the room and held his body prone against the cold brick.  He regarded them with indifference, no visible emotion in his brown eyes.  

There was a dripping above his head, and although he was careful to keep his head level, his eyes darted upward.  Clear tubes hung suspended from bottles on the ceiling.  The bottles were filled with a crimson liquid the color of blood.  Light from a single dim bulb filtered through the glass and the liquid and threw cherry-colored rays around the room.  

The situation suddenly ignited a spark of recognition: Wine.  The liquid that sloshed in the glass bottles above their heads was wine; he could smell it on the breath of his captors.  He blinked.

The door to the small room creaked menacingly as it opened.  A nearly bald man with a semi-circular crown of white hair and a small, snub nose entered the room.  He surveyed Champion with a cruel smirk before he approached, and looked at one of the guards.  He spoke with a thick French accent.

"Has he not struggled?"

The silent guards shook their heads.  The man grinned, displaying jagged teeth.

"Pity.  It almost seems pointless…he wouldn't go anywhere anyway.  Too dull to even realize he's caught."

There were chuckles of approval from the guards.  The man moved directly in front of Champion, and stared into his eyes, as though trying to shatter the cyclist with his glare.  The young man was silent.

"Or perhaps he thinks he's strong.  Is that it?"  The man cocked his head and sneered maliciously.  "You think you're strong?"

Champion said nothing.

The man's sneer deepened.  Impetuously, he snatched something from one of the guard's hands.  Champion saw only a flash of silver before the man's fist closed around the object.  Champion ignored the closed fist, oblivious to the clear tube that stuck out of it.

"We'll see how strong you are."  In an aside to the guards: "Is the formula prepared?"

Wordless nodding.  Champion thought he saw the man's eyes dart up to the bottles on the ceiling.  The sneer became a smirk again.

"Perfect.  Hold him."  Suddenly, violently, the guards yanked Champion's arms backward; his bare elbows smashed into the wall.  He opened his mouth in a small breath, but did not cry out.  He had learned long ago to endure pain.

This seemed to anger the man.  He was sneering again, at least.  His closed fist rose, positioned just before Champion's left forearm.  The young man did not flinch.  He did not know what was in the fist; therefore, it meant nothing to him.  

"We'll see how strong you are."

With that, the fist opened.  Resting on the palm was a long silver needle, the end of which was attached to a clear tube.  The fingers of the hand maneuvered the needle between thumb and forefinger—poised, delicate, dangerous.  Despite himself, Champion shrank back, although he knew nothing he could do would help him now.  His eyes darted up to the bottles on the ceiling, and for the first time, a tendril of panic entered his mind, reflecting in his large eyes.  He did not know what was being done to him.  Fearfully, he looked at the man and the needle inching closer to his arm.  His flesh recoiled from the hollow tip.

"Qu'est-ce que vous—"

His words were cut off as they devolved into a high-pitched shriek.  The needle plunged into his forearm and sent lances of pain through him.  He squirmed and kicked, trying to escape the pain, fists clenching and unclenching uselessly.  The guards gripped his thin upper body more tightly until he felt as though he was being crushed to death, and the needle still drove through his flesh.  Deep.  Deeper.  Fire radiated out from his forearm.  The man was laughing at the fear in Champion's innocent eyes.

Then…a trickle of cool fluid entered his pierced vein.  Champion rolled his eyes upward.  The red liquid in one of the bottles had snaked down the tube and was draining into his body, slowly erasing the agonies and engulfing him in a seductive peace.  His struggles weakened and then ceased.

The man drew back, leaving the needle embedded in Champion's forearm.  The cyclist was completely subdued, almost relaxing.  A cool smirk returned to the man's features.

"Make sure he gets it all.  We will repeat this exercise tomorrow.  I have other hapless captives to attend to."

Without so much as a backward glance, the man turned and left the room.  The creaking door groaned shut behind him.

~~~

That had been the first time.  Before long, he'd found himself starting to enjoy the doses, which were smaller after that.  He had not minded the conditions during the long winter; he had complied with his captors as they gave him another bicycle to ride on and forced him to compete with his fellow racers for their own cruel sport.  He was still indifferent to his captors, but he had begun to enjoy what he was doing.  Cycling and this newfound pleasure became what he lived for, and he adjusted quickly to his new life.

His grandmother had found him, eventually, as he'd known she would.  He had felt some of his happiness return after he'd been liberated from the gambling dens and seen the sun again.  He'd been satisfied to escape his cruel captors—but now, unwittingly, he was sold a slave to worse.

His body craved the drugs that had coursed through him in Belleville, and it refused to cooperate with his lethargic mind in their absence.  During his captivity, he had become completely dependent on them to function.  He knew that his situation was terrible, and he hated the continued secrecy of his intolerable addiction, but he also recognized that he had to appease his body and give in to its demands—he couldn't risk losing his ability to ride.  Any further sacrifice was merely secondary to that all-important necessity—he had to be able to keep riding.  

He had to…

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	3. Addicted

Chapter Three: Addicted

Champion had first realized that he was addicted soon after his and his grandmother's return from Belleville.  One rainy night, as he cycled up the steep incline of the Parisian streets, he had begun to tremble, then to shake, his body vibrating so violently that he was unable to keep pedaling and pitched headlong into his handlebars, his bike crumpling beneath him.  His grandmother had been riding behind him and quickly helped him up, supporting both him and his bicycle as they made their way home, agonizingly slowly.  For the first time since Belleville, Champion had been afraid.

His grandmother had cared for him.  She'd attributed his sudden weakness to the onslaught of a particularly insidious case of pneumonia that he'd undoubtedly caught from riding in the rain.  A few days' bed rest, she'd told him, and the hot slimy broth that had taken the place of his usual fare, would eradicate the disease.  Champion knew better—he was going through withdrawal, and he desperately needed the drug that he now knew he could not bicycle without.

He had found a grimy shop, a haven for the hopeless and distraught, that night when he'd sneaked out of the house after his grandmother had fallen asleep.  Barely able to keep his balance, he had bicycled to a place he had passed many times before in the heart of the city.  There, he'd spent the greater portion of his last race's winnings to buy a cardboard box filled with what the store manager had said he needed.  The man had promised him that the drugs would work—and they did.  Champion was completely in the grips of addiction, and almost past caring.

Steering his mind away from such disheartening thoughts, Champion rolled back his sleeve to reveal his bony forearm.  The skin in a dime-sized area below his wrist was stark white, raised and knotted from the scarring that had accumulated where the needle pierced his flesh.  Champion squinted to discern the blue line of his vein in the dim light, and gritted his teeth.  With an artist's care, he slipped the needle into his arm, biting his tongue to keep from whimpering at the sudden jab of pain.

The shock quickly gave way to a mild, more easily stood burning sensation as the needle started to work, delivering the necessary substance.  Champion relaxed as the drug flowed into him, and he closed his eyes as its calming effects ensnared his senses.  He felt supernaturally light and incorporeal, as though gravity had suddenly become less influential.  Yet at the same time, he was aware of a marked sharpening of his thought and a more willing response of his body.  Sluggish muscle and sinew were stimulated with the return of the drug that they needed; life rushed back into his trembling arms and hands.  The needle's pain remained dull and easily forgotten, as the memory of his captivity in Belleville surfaced.  He tried not to focus on it, instead savoring the feeling of waking up that accompanied the reintroduction of his sacred liquid.  However, his fevered brain was working again, and with the restoration of thought came the painful realization of the consequences of his undeniable addiction.

The task of satisfying his cravings for the drug grew more difficult with each day.  By now he had begun to develop a substantial amount of tolerance for it and it took larger and larger doses to achieve the same effects.  His eyes were bloodshot and his head throbbed from sleep deprivation caused by his nightly rituals.  It was inconceivable that his grandmother would be fooled for long—and once she discovered his worsening habit, what would she do but prevent him from continuing—something that would undermine years of hard work in a single week?

For a moment, sadness gripped his heart.  He was deceiving his grandmother, the only person in the world who had ever really cared…but he hated the thought of telling her the truth.  Would she think he was weak?—More importantly, would she still love him?  He wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answer.

There, too, was the matter of drug tests before the major races, a procedure that was sure to expose him once and for all.  Even if he resisted indulging for a few nights before a race, he would never be able to finish without a dose of the substance.  He couldn't possibly perform at his peak without them anymore.  And if he were discovered, his name would be sullied for the rest of his life—he would be branded a fallen champion, consumed by a need over which he knew he no longer had any control.

Champion tried to forget these cares and fall back into the calming state of relaxation that the drug offered, but his numb mind had been stimulated into functioning again and he could not banish the disquiet.  His enjoyment drained out of him slowly as the last few drops of the liquid seeped into his bloodstream.  

Champion grimaced in pain as he gingerly drew the needle out of his vein.  A bead of blood welled on his arm as he immersed the needle in the bottle of rubbing alcohol, and he absently wiped the crimson drop away with the bloodstained cloth.  That dose should keep him going for a day or so at least, but he worried what would happen when he needed it more than once a day—he'd be forced to stop in the middle of his training to satisfy his body's cravings, and he couldn't afford to let that happen.  Above all, his training sessions must remain uninterrupted and sacred as they had been before the drug had come into his life.

Collecting his effects, Champion wearily returned to his closet and deposited them in their hiding place behind the stack of cycling keepsakes.  The drug sang through his veins, returning hope to his deprived body—though for how long, this time, he didn't know.  He began to cross the room to turn off his light, but a twinkling of something—perhaps only a flickering bulb, outside his window—made him turn to stare out towards the city, through tired eyes.

Paris's night was bright as always, colorful lights dancing on the horizon and in buildings that loomed higher and higher in the city center.  The distant Eiffel Tower gleamed cheerfully, its familiar A-shape strangely reassuring amid the dark, square blocks of the other buildings.  Another commuter train approached the house from the overhead railway, gliding fluidly along the track.

Champion stared out into the night of his home, searching for a seed of hope amid the shadowed buildings and bright lights.

~~~

A person who took the ten-fifteen train that night might see more than the hopelessness and despair in the bloodshot eyes of the man who stared out of his window, expecting nothing from the world and receiving nothing in return.  They might see more than the broken dreams and piercing heartache, more than the mistreated slave that he had become to the substance that coursed through him.

If a person looked with eyes of sympathy and love, they might be able to see a remnant of the weary innocent he had been, glancing mournfully back.

And there is the portrait of our tragic hero.  Just to provide you with some information, the drug that he's taking is an amphetamine—"speed" is the common term.  Makes a morbid sort of sense, doesn't it?  While I'm on the subject: Drugs are BAD.  Don't do them; I never have (yet I write about them—???)

Author's Last Word:  See button?  Down there on the left?  Push button!  Come on, pleeeease?  Kudos to each of the wonderful awesome people who review!


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